OLGA Tabs cannot legally be taken down

Tablature or the transcription of a piece of music from ear to pen is a protected act of free speech and is not forbidden by any form of licensing, contract, copyright, or trademark.

The reprinting of such a completely free endeavor is also completely protected as free speech.

How then did DMCA bound lawyers shutdown OLGA the largest database of user contributed guitar tablature?

Under what law and by what means do they have the right to deny anyone (however talented or not) to write down what their ear hears and provide it to others.

The individual effort to transcribe a work of art whether it be a painting or a piece of music has no connection to the original work as long as it is not claimed to be the original. A transcription can clearly not claim to be an original. Its implicit in the definition of the word transcription.

Even the paid musical performance and recording of a transcription cannot be forbidden. Not a single "cover" band in the world scratching a living in bars all over the world pays or is required to pay royalties of any kind to the originators of the works they perform.

The transcription of the work was done by the cover band and has no direct connection to the original with the exception that they listened to it and by their own skills produced a performable replica which is judged on its merits and is well known to the consuming audience not to be an original work of art. In no way does that diminish its value or potential enjoyment by the consumer. Nor should it need to be (or has it ever been) licensed or sanctioned by the government.

Perhaps the DMCA should have been named the DMPA (Digital Millenium PATENT Act) because the DMCA view of copyright is coming eerily close to the interpretation of patents and trademarks wherein any and all use or reproduction is prohibited apparently especially when in combination with a computer network.

To continue along these lines, every printed copy of song and verse of the US National Anthem has a copyright notice at the bottom of the printed page. However, if I as an experienced musician merely write it down by ear, I am now a criminal?

How many of the hundreds of transcribers of the original anthem licensed the song from anyone all the way back to Francis Scott Key?

The DMCA is not copyright law at all. It is patent law that says any creatively produced work of a person is assumed to be an invention which cannot by any non-sanctioned means be replicated (even by non-technical human means ear and pen) and transmitted to another.

If my local elementary school endeavors to do a play called Pirates of the Caribbean and post it on youtube.com they will be in big trouble.

When will this insanity stop?

Why people don't get copyright

Copyright is an outdated model for protecting IP but
copyright for all the DMCA blow hard speak is still the weakest (and yet most often used) way to protect intellectual property or creative works.

DMCA is trying to make patents out of copyrights where any reproduction of an original represents copyright infringement.

It does not.

See the post below I wrote in response to ridiculous arguments on Ars Technica about how copyright is soooo patent-y these days. Im pissed at this point enough to educate people who are too lazy to even understand the law but want to throw non-existent laws in my face.

By the way my response below has been sent via registered mail to the US copyright office and any quoting of the following text is a copyright infringement which I will pursue vigorously.

Copyright (C) me.

---------quote
ok fools here's the real deal.

Copyright law is exactly what it says.

The right to copy a printed medium in its originally printed and copyrighted form.

that's why..still folloowing along class?
Its called c-o-p-y-r-i-g-h-t.

The right to copy a printed piece of paper.
We are talking about printing press laws.

And by the way the US copyright office allows anyone to copyright a work without even sending it to the copyright office they can just SAY copyright so and so and put the (C) after it and its a (potentially) legal writ. Again go and learn about copyright fools!

So we move on to the reality.

If I hear a piece of music and lay down some tracks or my wife does a great job of painting a Monet in her studio. Its A-O-K

Because we aren't "copying" a printed piece of material for the intent of passing it off as the original even if we reproduce it in public.

Copyright has and always will be the weakest form of protection a work can have. If you doubt me, read a book. Reading is not outlawed yet.

If you don't believe it then visit at least the US copyright office website. It will tell you how weak the protection is.

Its not weak by accident. Its weak because its intended to be weak and its an obsolete basic printing press argument. DMCA tries to turn copyright into patent.

A copyright is NOT a patent. It does NOT protect anyone from anything except the verbatim copying of a "copyrighted" document in its original form.

It does not protect transcription by ear or performance or recording at all.

Get a clue.

OLGA Tabs cannot legally be taken down

Tablature or the transcription of a piece of music from ear to pen is a protected act of free speech and is not forbidden by any form of licensing, contract, copyright, or trademark.

The reprinting of such a completely free endeavor is also completely protected as free speech.

How then did DMCA bound lawyers shutdown OLGA the largest database of user contributed guitar tablature?

Under what law and by what means do they have the right to deny anyone (however talented or not) to write down what their ear hears and provide it to others.

The individual effort to transcribe a work of art whether it be a painting or a piece of music has no connection to the original work as long as it is not claimed to be the original. A transcription can clearly not claim to be an original. Its implicit in the definition of the word transcription.

Even the paid musical performance and recording of a transcription cannot be forbidden. Not a single "cover" band in the world scratching a living in bars all over the world pays or is required to pay royalties of any kind to the originators of the works they perform.

The transcription of the work was done by the cover band and has no direct connection to the original with the exception that they listened to it and by their own skills produced a performable replica which is judged on its merits and is well known to the consuming audience not to be an original work of art. In no way does that diminish its value or potential enjoyment by the consumer. Nor should it need to be (or has it ever been) licensed or sanctioned by the government.

Perhaps the DMCA should have been named the DMPA (Digital Millenium PATENT Act) because the DMCA view of copyright is coming eerily close to the interpretation of patents and trademarks wherein any and all use or reproduction is prohibited apparently especially when in combination with a computer network.

To continue along these lines, every printed copy of song and verse of the US National Anthem has a copyright notice at the bottom of the printed page. However, if I as an experienced musician merely write it down by ear, I am now a criminal?

How many of the hundreds of transcribers of the original anthem licensed the song from anyone all the way back to Francis Scott Key?

The DMCA is not copyright law at all. It is patent law that says any creatively produced work of a person is assumed to be an invention which cannot by any non-sanctioned means be replicated (even by non-technical human means ear and pen) and transmitted to another.

If my local elementary school endeavors to do a play called Pirates of the Caribbean and post it on youtube.com they will be in big trouble.

When will this insanity stop?